Q&A: London has buzz in the tech economy, but now city hall has to capitalize on it

The tech sector is Canada's "economic sleeping giant," according to a commercial real estate firm that has released a report scoring the tech talent and potential for growth in 75 North American markets.

London appears on the Next 25 list of up-and-coming markets, coming in 8th after nearly doubling its tech talent population in the last five years, according to the CBRE Scoring Tech Talent report.

"Canadian tech is on a path to a more normalized, sustainable growth trajectory, which will make for a healthier sector in the long run," said Paul Morassutti, CBRE Canada's chairperson. "You could say that Canada's tech sector has shifted from office-market juggernaut to a sleeping giant in the short-term."

CBC London spoke to Concordia University economist Moshe Lander, who grew up in London, about the potential here, and what pitfalls the city can avoid. 

CBC: London being an emerging tech hub might come as a surprise to some Londoners. What makes us a player in this field? 

Moshe Lander: It's got Western and Fanshawe, which are in their own ways well respected within Canada and well--renowned for their technological prowess and the work that they do within computer science and technology fields. London's greatest attraction has always been it's close to Toronto, but not Toronto.

London offers easy access but at a fraction of the the price, so that's also going to be attractive, if you need employees that are going to have to be well paid, better that you pay them well in London than having to pay them really well in Toronto.

CBC: When we're talking tech, what are we talking about? 

Lander: It could be everything from Silicon Valley-type tech to more of the the nuts and bolts of tech. Again, that's where both Western and Fanshawe offer attractive features for the tech industry. You've got a fantastic community college that has a very strong tech reputation, all the way up to the Silicon Valley-type approach where Western is turning out graduates with tremendous skills. And you have the Ivey business school which is also internationally known. The ability to turn all of these tech ideas into actual business models is attractive, too.

CBC: How do we capitalize on this and not just remain 8th on the list? 

Lander: This is where city hall has to come into play. It requires vision, and unfortunately this is something that London has repeatedly shown that it's lacking. 

In my 30 or 40 years of ties to London, the city has not grown beyond 400,00, 450,000 people. You look at Hamilton and Ottawa that are now exploding population-wise and it's because London city hall lacks vision. If you want to make sure that London continues to be a draw, city hall needs to be thinking about all of the influx of people that are coming and what they are going to need. 

They're going to need healthcare, they're going to need schools, You're going to have to develop an infrastructure, roads, maybe a light rail line, zoning laws to build housing to make sure that everybody who's coming into the city is not going to find that they overwhelm the local services and make it impossible to function.

If people get frustrated that their quality of life is lacking in London, then they're just going to move to the next city, say Kitchener-Waterloo, or somewhere else where they're going to be able to say 'We can offer you the same thing, but we have the vision, we've laid the groundwork for you to be able to come and live here, work here, play here.'

CBC: That doesn't sound like an easy thing to do.

Lander: There's a very small window for it to happen because people are coming to London now, seeing that it's on the Top 10 list. You can't say to them, 'Give us a decade and we'll have our act together.' They're not going to wait that long. That's the thing with the tech industry — it's very, very fluid. If they don't find that it's attractive today, they're very mobile.

CBC: What can the city do? 

Lander: I'm out in Calgary right now, and there are hundreds and hundreds of kilometres of bike paths. You can get to work, you can also enjoy all the greenery. And you have the Forest City, and the fact that there's not hundreds of kilometres of pathways and bike paths, that's a problem. Those are the kinds of things that people are looking for in terms of quality of life. You have to have a vision. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity

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